Its Child Safety Week!
I know what you’re thinking… shouldn’t every week be child safety week? And you’re right. But its important to share awareness and keep it in mind at all times that whether you have children, work with children or interact with children, that its important that we all make their safety a priority.
As a teaching agency, our most important issue is safeguarding and keeping children safe so we make sure that all of our candidates have up to date CPD and safeguarding training so that they know exactly what the correct and best practice is.
Here at Tick Education, we’ve created our top 5 tips for ensuring that children remain safe in a school or learning environment.
- No contact – Most schools have a no contact policy anyway, but its important to keep in mind that physical intervention should only be used as a last resort or to protect a child from hurting themselves. If you can see a child is about to run out into a road when a car is coming, you would be within your rights to pull them back so that you prevent them from a serious incident.
- Be honest – If a child comes to you with a safeguarding concern, its extremely important that you are up front and transparent about the safeguarding process. You need to tell them that you will have to share what they tell you with the safeguarding lead at the school but assure them that you will treat it with the upmost sensitivity and respect.
- See it, report it – If you notice that a child is acting differently or looking differently than normal and you are concerned for their safety, you need to report it to the safeguarding lead. It might be nothing but its better to be safe than sorry. 9 times out of 10, it will probably be nothing or something quite minor, however if it is something more serious, then you might have just saved that child from possible abuse and neglect.
- Remain aware – The majority of adults want to educate and protect children, but unfortunately there are some people that want to cause harm to them. Its important to stay alert to anybody or anything that seems unusual. If you are concerned about somebody, then you need to report it to the safeguarding lead so that they can tell the appropriate authorities and investigate the matter fully.
- Respect the rules – Every school has its own policies and procedures, so its important that you read these and understand them properly. If you don’t understand anything, you need to ask your line manager and respect the policies and procedures that the school has.
If you’re a teacher looking for a role or a school looking for a teacher, contact Tick Education on 01234 975200 or info@tickeducation.co.uk